[RESOLVED] Status code won't change on 404 handler

stimpy77

I can't seem to get rid of the 404 status code on my 404 error handler. I used .htaccess to set the 404 error handler to a custom php page. The php page does late-loading of content at an alternate URI rather than 302 redirect. It needs to return HTTP code 200, but instead it's still always 404 Not Found.

I used:

header(HTTP/1.1 200 Ok);

.. and checked with ..
http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers/

I found a php bug report here but it's dated 2003!! http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=24177

Assuming the bug still exists, 4096 bytes is unreasonable; the content I'm transferring isn't that big.

I googled for the ability to set the status code and only found the above header() method but also found on php's web site the method: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.HttpMessage-setResponseStatus.php

.. but that references module PECL, which isn't available on my web host (HostGator), and which may or may not fix the problem anyway.

Help?

bradgrafelman

What version of PHP are you using?

EDIT: Using PHP 5.2.3, I couldn't reproduce the problem - using header('HTTP/1.1 200 Ok'); changed the 404 status header for me.

EDIT2: Did you mistype, or did you literally try header(HTTP/1.1 200 Ok); without any quotes? If so, that obviously will cause problems...

Quadodo

What content are you transferring? If you can just do what he did:

<?php
// header stuff here
echo '<!--' . str_repeat(' ', 4089) . '-->';
?>

Is that really unreasonable? It's just content you can't see anyway...

bradgrafelman

Quadodo wrote:
Is that really unreasonable?

To me, yes, since the issue was resolved long ago. If he's still having this issue, it probably means he's running a very, very outdated version of PHP.

I suspect, however, it might be a silly coding error...

stimpy77

I am using PHP 4. And yes I forgot the quotes in my forum post (not in my code).

Turns out my approach was wrong, I needed an .htaccess URL rewrite, not a 404 handler. Problem solved.

bradgrafelman

Glad to hear you got it sorted - don't forget to mark this thread resolved.